Death of a thousand cuts?

The TUC has just published its submission to the short inquiry into the HSE's work by the House of Commons Select Committee on Work and Pensions. The memo makes some good points about the 5% budget cut the executive is expected to make every year till 2011, on top of previous reductions. The statistics aren't new but they gain strength by being collected together and pithily stated. Here's a few excerpts:

"Since 1997, the UK workforce has increased by around 9%. In addition the number of premises that the HSE inspect has gone up by well over 20%. Yet the HSE's workforce has shrunk from over 4,000 to its current number of less than 3,500..."

"The administrative cuts that have taken place have already led to inspectors having less back up and having to reduce the amount of frontline work they do. This has already affected the service that the HSE gives. In the past 4 years the number of inspections fell by 25% while the number of prosecutions fell by 49%. "

"There are more traffic wardens in London than there are inspectors in the whole of HSE's Field Operations Directorate for the whole of Great Britain. It is estimated that the actual number of FOD inspectors is around 700 to cover all the inspections, investigations and prosecutions for all manufacturing (except chemicals manufacturing), the health services, education, all local authority activities, Govt departments and agencies, fire and police services, the defence industry and MOD, agriculture, fairgrounds, domestic gas safety, utilities, ports and docks, and others.

"...the number of inspections has fallen from 116,652 in 1996/7 to 55,195 in 2004/05."

"...under 20% of major injuries are investigated, and under 5% of 'over three day injuries' are investigated"

"The number of prosecutions has fallen from 1986 in 2001/2 to 1141 in 2006/07, although there was a welcome increase in the past year."

This is just the status quo. In an interview with HSW magazine last year, HSE chief Geoffrey Podger said he believed they had absorbed the cuts to date, but that any more would really affect their ability to operate.

This should bother anyone in business who is trying to comply with safety regulations and safeguard their workers. The erosion of an effective enforcement regime threatens them because it gives a competitive advantage to businesses in their sectors who choose to save money by playing fast and loose with employee's health and safety.

The TUC's full submission is at www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/tuc-14176-f0.cfm